The Strongest Linc: How Lincoln Lewis Shed 12kg

From the outside, Lincoln Lewis looked to be living a charmed life. The boyishly handsome younger son of the great “King” Wally Lewis, a rugby league Immortal, he had blazed his own path as an actor, winning a Logie Award in 2008 for his work on Home and Away. More recently, however, as new roles proved elusive and dark moods descended, the 31-year-old began to feel as though the pillars holding up his life were crumbling. Needing something solid to grab on to, Lewis accepted an MH challenge to overhaul his body in 12 weeks. What he learned along the way could be the blueprint for a transformation of your own

“The thing my parents hammered was, if you’re doing something, give it 100 per cent. Dad was more quiet about it. Being the bloke, he might say something, but in a blokey way. Mum would make sure it was said from a mother’s perspective. She’d say, ‘Put your heart and soul into it and we’ll be proud parents’.

That’s how I approached this transformation. My body now is like the finished product of a movie. That’s all people see, but nothing happens without pain behind the scenes. In my first session with my trainer, Jono Castano, the rest periods were so short I nearly spewed about six times. My carb intake was cut pretty savagely, so for the first two weeks I was very cranky and very tired, but at the same time I realised that in order to get yourself out of that hole you’ve created, it’s going to be painful. In those tough times it was Jono who would pick me up. Could I have done this without him? No. We all need a helping hand, and it’s not a bad thing to ask for help. Especially from someone who knows what they’re doing. I used to be like, ‘I know how to do a push-up! I’ll do a couple of sets and I’ll be right’.

So, really, I liked to think I knew what I was doing, but if I had then I wouldn’t have gotten into the state I reached. I basically surrendered any notion I had of being competent in the gym and said to Jono, ‘All I’m going to do is whatever you tell me to do’. And there were times when I said, ‘Jono, do you think I should have a little more meat here or a little less fat there?’ And Jono would say, ‘Trust the process, Linc. Just trust the process. Everyone wants results now but trust the process and you’ll get there’. And that’s the thing. Because in the past if I didn’t see results within the first week I’d be like, ‘It’s not fucking working! I’m going to eat a box of Tim Tams’.

Compared to a few months ago I feel leaps and bounds better. I feel this experience has completely turned my life around. My approach to food has shifted. My training’s shifted. And it’s trickled down into everything. Mentally, I feel so much clearer. The motivation, the creativity, the confidence – they’re all back. To the point where I’ve been doing the best auditions I’ve probably ever done. Even just my interactions with people . . . it had got to the point where I was finding it harder and harder to look people in the eye.

In case guys think I’m saying that all you need to do to change your life is to change your body, well, it’s not that simple. But everything is linked. I understand that now more than ever. Everything you do has an effect on your life but no one thing can fix everything. It’s not enough to eat some vegies everyday but otherwise just sit around like a piece of shit. In my case, I was like, ‘I’ll eat shit because I’m feeling shit, but I’ll go to the gym and I’ll pick some stuff up and put it down for an hour’. That, really, was what it was. I wasn’t thinking about effective rest periods between sets, about nutrition and how to time it, or about how eating shit food can make you sluggish and want to sleep. Everything is connected. And that’s what I’m figuring out.

Physically, it’s good to see my neck, my chin and my jawline again. They’d all kind of moulded into one but they’ve reappeared as separate entities. My eyes were getting bloodshot all the time from eating a lot of sugar, but now they’ve cleared up. And going to events like the Logies back in June . . . this suit of mine that had become a little snug, it fit perfectly on the night. And I didn’t have to worry about sucking things in and angling a certain way. I could smile and just feel happy and confident in myself.

At the moment I feel 100 per cent ready for whatever opportunity comes my way. And that’s what you need to be in this industry."

Dan WilliamsDan Williams, Men’s Health’s Associate Editor, is the magazine’s most experienced (aka oldest) presence. While his body protests more than it used to, he still insists it honour the MH way, with regular dawn workouts mingled with punishing sessions on the tennis court – all against a backdrop of abstemiousness: he turns into a pumpkin at 10pm.